Hurricane Hunter - Into The Wind
After basic training, Bubba went to the Spartan School of Aeronautics in Tulsa, Oklahoma, to study aircraft and engine mechanics. On completion, he went to Sheppard Airforce Base, Wichita Falls, Texas, for a specialized course in B-29 mechanics and from there he went to Chanute Airforce Base in Illinois to study to become a flight engineer. Then he went to Randolph Field Texas, near San Antonio for his flight training and from there it was overseas to his duty station, the 54th Strategic Reconnaissance Squadron (Weather) at Andersen Airforce Base, Guam, Marianas Islands, flying as a flight engineer aboard a WB-29 Superfortress hurricane hunter.
The mission of a hurricane hunter was to simply fly into a hurricane, monitor, and report. But this was a dangerous assignment; up until 1943, no man had flown into a hurricane and lived to tell about it.
Violent, circular windstorms that form over the western part of the north Pacific Ocean are called typhoons. In Australia, such a storm is called a willy-willy. In the Philippines, it is called a baguio. The people who live around the Indian Ocean and the Bay of Bengal call them cyclones. All of these are the same kind of storm as a hurricane. When they hit land or when ships at sea get in their way, they can be destructive.
The first man to fly a plane into a hurricane was Colonel Joseph Duckworth, one of those early pilots who believed he could take an airplane through any kind of weather. "If I can get off the ground and land again," he often said, "I can fly through anything." That first flight was made in an AT-6 single engine advance trainer made by North American Aviation. He described that flight through the tremendous winds of the hurricane as "tossed around like a stick in a dog's mouth."
As a student pilot, Bubba had warned me to "always avoid thunderheads and black clouds." But now his duty as an airman was to fly into the eye of a typhoon.
We would write each other often and he would tell me how the B-29 would be tossed like a leaf in the wind as they rammed through the outer turbulence surrounding the calm sky of the eye. "The plane would shutter and shake and the wings would flap as we pushed into the violent storm." He told me, "upon post-flight inspections, the crew chief and mechanics would often find popped rivets on the wings of the craft due to stresses from the wind."
Bubba at age 18 was having a good time over Horseshoe Lake practicing aerobatics, but now I could detect a profound respect for the forces of nature.
The mission of a hurricane hunter was to simply fly into a hurricane, monitor, and report. But this was a dangerous assignment; up until 1943, no man had flown into a hurricane and lived to tell about it.
Violent, circular windstorms that form over the western part of the north Pacific Ocean are called typhoons. In Australia, such a storm is called a willy-willy. In the Philippines, it is called a baguio. The people who live around the Indian Ocean and the Bay of Bengal call them cyclones. All of these are the same kind of storm as a hurricane. When they hit land or when ships at sea get in their way, they can be destructive.
The first man to fly a plane into a hurricane was Colonel Joseph Duckworth, one of those early pilots who believed he could take an airplane through any kind of weather. "If I can get off the ground and land again," he often said, "I can fly through anything." That first flight was made in an AT-6 single engine advance trainer made by North American Aviation. He described that flight through the tremendous winds of the hurricane as "tossed around like a stick in a dog's mouth."
As a student pilot, Bubba had warned me to "always avoid thunderheads and black clouds." But now his duty as an airman was to fly into the eye of a typhoon.
We would write each other often and he would tell me how the B-29 would be tossed like a leaf in the wind as they rammed through the outer turbulence surrounding the calm sky of the eye. "The plane would shutter and shake and the wings would flap as we pushed into the violent storm." He told me, "upon post-flight inspections, the crew chief and mechanics would often find popped rivets on the wings of the craft due to stresses from the wind."
Bubba at age 18 was having a good time over Horseshoe Lake practicing aerobatics, but now I could detect a profound respect for the forces of nature.
posted by bugbytelove | 6:51 AM
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